The whole truth and nothing but the truth about my husband, his parents, and me - That Woman.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Ch 1 Sly and Doris trash talk everyone they know, which would be fine except they are breaking the rule about praise out, gossip in

You guys, I love gossip as much as the next person and if it
can be snarky gossip about nasty people, I am there with the popcorn.

But there are Rules. The Rules are that you do not trash
talk nice people and that you do not trash talk your own people to people
outside the group. That is, you never trash talk your own family to strangers.

Unless, of course, you are online and are anonymous, like I
am here.

But trash-talking your daughter in law to your son’s
girlfriend? Trash talking your own sons to your son’s girlfriend? The
girlfriend you are just meeting for the very first time ever?

My friends, that is Not Done.

Yet that’s what Sly and Doris do after not asking me anything
about myself. They talk about Primo’ half-brothers, Ted and Jack, and Ted’s
wife, Ted’sWife, and Jack’s ex-wife, Stephanie.

·Ted and Ted’sWife won’t eat leftovers[1] so
they are Bad

·Ted and Ted’sWife served goose for Thanksgiving
one year and it was not good

·Ted and Ted’sWife shop at Dean and DeLuca, even
though they had to have Sly co-sign on their credit card because their credit
was so bad

·Ted’sWife smokes!

·Ted’sWife drinks too much

·Ted is pompous

·Jack won’t talk to anyone

·Sly and Doris invested in Jack’s restaurant and
it failed

·Neither Stephanie nor Ted’sWife know how to load
a dishwasher

·We do not hear about Ted or Jack’s
dishwasher-loading skills

·Ted is so full of crap!

·Ted and Ted’sWife live beyond their means

·Stephanie shops like there’s no tomorrow

·One time when Ted and Ted’sWife were visiting
Sly and Doris, Ted’sWife ate all the pickled herring

Doris: Stephanie doesn’t even feed those children brown
rice! She gives them white rice! And never prepares broccoli! She doesn’t even
know how to make broccoli.[2]

Primo: Mom, Dad. Stephanie is a really nice person. Please
stop.

Sly: Her grammar is horrible. We’ll ask her what she and the kids are doing and
she says that they are ‘laying’ around. Laying! Laying! I keep correcting her
but she won’t change.

Primo: Dad! Whether someone speaks proper English has
nothing to do with her value as a human being. Please. Enough with the negative
comments. It is rude.

Sly: Primo! She cannot even load a dishwasher! I don’t know
if there is anything she can do!

Doris: Ted’sWife can’t load a dishwasher, either.

Sly: No. And Ted’sWife drinks too much.

Doris: And she’s fat. She hasn’t lost any weight. She really
needs to lose weight.

Sly nods in agreement. Being overweight is a serious character flaw, not a description of a
body. Being overweight is on par with strangling kittens before baking
them in a pie to feed to little children.

I study Doris. She is not fat. She is maybe even a little too
thin – she is scrawny and ropy, except for the bosom, of course.

Sly would do OK in a famine. He has extra. Enough extra that
he shouldn’t be throwing any stones from inside his comfortably padded glass
house.

Sly: They don’t even do anything cultural. All they do is
watch TV. She doesn’t take those children to the museum. She doesn’t expose
them to art or music. Just TV. Nothing cultural. Nothing! It was up to us to
take Michael and Maria to the lecture on global warming at the library last week.

I stifle a laugh. That’s just what every high school student
wants to do with his grandparents – attend a lecture on global warming. That’s
the kind of event that builds fond memories that a person will pull out of her
mind during bad times in the future.

“I’m going through chemo,” Maria will muse, 50 years from
now, “but what gets me through it is remembering the great times I had with
Grandpa and Grandma. Oh, that time they took me to the global warming lecture!
What fun that was!”

If only I had more to remember about my grandparents than
the times baking bread, making apple pie, picking raspberries, riding on the
tractor, watching a calf being born, playing cards, going to Shopko with the
dollar my grandma gave me to spend, and going fishing. They never took me to a
lecture on global warming. They must not have really loved me.

Doris: And the spending. She just keeps wasting money, even
since the divorce. I ask her what she’s going to do for the weekend and she
tells me she’s going shopping. She spends and spends and spends.

This (ex) daughter in law Stephanie person must be truly
awful if Sly and Doris are willing to talk about her this way in front of

A stranger

Who might be the next daughter in law.

I defend myself in my head. I don’t really like brown rice,
but I don’t have any children, so what I feed or do not feed them is not an
issue. I cook broccoli and other green things all the time. I think I do it
right. Is there a wrong way to cook broccoli? Is it a difficult skill to
acquire? Wash, cut up, steam, roast, or boil, right?

My grammar is usually fine, although I don’t parse every
word that comes out of my mouth, and I try not to judge other people on theirs.
My grandmother says, “ain’t,” but that doesn’t mean she isn’t worthy of love
and respect.

I used to be that
obnoxious person who would correct people’s (peoples’?) grammar online, but
then I realized that I was being a total jerk. I stopped doing it. I don’t want
to be a jerk. I like being right (who doesn’t?) but man that is a dangerous
path to follow. It’s better to be nice than to be right.

I could lose a few pounds, but nobody would say I was fat.
I’d been fat. I know what fat is. I fight it every day. They might say I was
comfortable, but not fat.

And even if I were fat, SO WHAT? Fatness <> moral
worth. Fat is just an adjective. It is one of many body types, but being fat is
not a moral crime. Being fat does not make a person bad. It is not a result of
being a bad person. It’s just a thing. My fatness, whatever degree of fat I
might be, does not hurt anyone else.

I prefer to watch Bridezillas
over going to a museum, but I have seen my fair share of Great Art. Finally, I am
not a big spender. Most of my clothes money is spent at the Junior League
Thrift Shop, one of the best-kept secrets in town for good clothes at a great
price. I don’t spend a million bucks on dressing myself. I just look like it.

I congratulate myself. There will be no reason for Sly and
Doris to criticize me. By the standards they are defining, I am almost perfect.

Things that make a
person a bad daughter in law or just a bad person, period

Things I do/am

Things I do not do/am
not

Uses bad grammar

X

Doesn’t cook or eat broccoli

X

Doesn’t cook broccoli properly

I don’t know yet –
what is the right way to cook broccoli?

Is fat

I might be a little
chubby

Mostly not, but it
was always lurking. This could be a danger point.

Spends a lot of money

X

Smokes

But I plan to start
once I am too old to get those wrinkles around my mouth

X

Won’t talk to anyone

But I don’t want to talk to Sly and Doris

I will talk to
perfect strangers in line at the grocery store

Is pompous

I don’t think I am

Serves goose

I’ve never even
eaten it

Won’t eat leftovers

I cook huge batches
of stuff and freeze it

Doesn’t go to museums

I don’t go to
museums anymore

I’ve been. I’m
done. A person can get tired of museums.

Shops at Dean & DeLuca even with bad credit

I’ve never shopped
there, even with good credit

Drinks too much

I don’t like
alcohol and almost never drink

Doesn’t know how to load a dishwasher

I don’t know how to load a dishwasher. I wash my dishes by
hand. For one person, a dishwasher is wasteful.

Eats all the herring

I don’t even like
herring

[1] I gotta
agree with Sly on this one. Wasting food? That is just wrong.

[2] In the
tone of voice one would use to say, “She feeds them strychnine!”

3 comments:

My mom always made frozen broccoli, never fresh. Wonder what Sly and Doris would think of that.

Also, I don't know how to load the dishwasher properly, since, before I got married, I'd never owned or used a dishwasher. Thankfully, my husband doesn't mind (although he does sometimes move things after I've loaded it).

It is really a wonder you stuck with Primo, with THOSE people as part of the bargain! It's really hard for me to imagine people that horrible! I guess -- no, I know -- I've led a sheltered life. But, then -- you wouldn't have this entertaining blog without them!

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About Me

Two weeks before our wedding, my husband's parents called to tell him 1. they weren't coming and 2. he shouldn't marry me. Since then, I have gotten along with them about as well as you might think. PS They died hating me and disinherited my husband. PPS None of this is made up.
And now, Primo is running for state-level public office for the November 2018 election. And - it's not fun. For either of us.